Fast & Furious: Supercharged - How a Theme Park Ride Takes You to the Streets

Opening June 25th at Universal Studios Hollywood, Fast & Furious: Supercharged brings the incredibly successful movie series into the theme park realm for the first time. The new ride has been incorporated into the classic Universal Studio Tour, and includes several stars from the films, including Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson and Luke Evans.

A few weeks back, I was given an early look at what to expect from Supercharged from Universal Studios Hollywood Executive Show Producer, Chick Russell, whose previous work for Universal theme parks included Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and Transformers: The Ride. Russell showed me a computer walk-through of the entire ride, including the lead-up portion setting up the scenario and then the main ride itself, which involves huge screens on both sides of the guests, putting them into the middle of a high speed street race, in a manner Universal first used for their King Kong attraction.

What really impressed me was how just watching the movie footage on a small computer screen I felt an incredible sense of motion, as though I was hurtling forward. Russell then brought me into the huge building that will house the ride, where we discussed how it all came together and involving the film actors – and more on how the effects and screens they've created make it seem as though you're traveling incredibly fast (and furious), even when you're not moving forward at all.

IGN: At this point, it’s amazing that the technology has gotten to the point where the tram doesn’t have to be going forward and you can still create that sense of momentum.

Chick Russell: What we have here is really a flight simulator that by wrapping this high definition images all around you, and you’re looking at and you’re seeing the tram is moving, even though it’s not moving, you can get the sensation that it is moving. Then once you synchronize the motion base, with the turns in the road and the different vehicles that are hitting you, your mind just gives into the fact that what you’re seeing is really happening, that you’re driving 120 miles per hour down the street; that you’re jumping a river. It all becomes real at that point in your brain because everything you feel and everything you see convinces you of that.

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Fast & Furious: Supercharged Posters

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IGN: I’m assuming every prior ride teaches you something new. You worked on the Transformers ride, King Kong is here… Does it feel like you can build on them as you go forward with something like this?

Russell: Absolutely. That’s what we wanted to do with this. We wanted to do many, many things that have never been done before, individually and then combine them in a way that’s never been done before. This is the world’s longest 3D screen. That’s never been done before. Then it has this perforated finish on it that lets us place the speakers where we want. Then we wanted to create the world’s largest, I believe, flight simulator with this hydraulic motion base. So we’re putting all of these things together on bigger and bigger scale. We’ve improved the images using 4K projectors. Everything looks incredibly realistic so basically it’s one big, huge magic trick that once you’re inside of it, you forget all of that and you’re really just trying to survive driving through the streets of LA. Your mind just believes it all because of the way it’s all put together.

IGN: There is a lot of opportunities at Universal for where you put rides. This could have been it’s own standalone attraction, so how did you decide it would be part of the Studio Tour?

Russell: We really wanted to have a big finale to the Studio Tour. It’s the most popular attraction here to begin with, but we wanted to take it to the next level. We knew, like any experience, if we could have a thrill ride at the end of Studio Tour, it would be the ultimate goal. We knew that Fast and Furious would be the perfect thrill ride to use as the finale.

IGN: Was it an extra challenge because of what Fast and Furious is and the expectations of that title, but you’re dealing with these trams? You can’t suddenly turn the trams into something they’re not, so how much thought went into how you were going to approach that?

Russell: That was the huge challenge. You take a tram and try to make it work in the Fast and Furious world. It’s like the two opposite transportation systems but because of our hydraulic motion based and by virtue of the world’s longest 3D screen, with this very realistic looking projection image, we found a way to take even the tram and make it feel like it’s racing through the city at 120 miles per hour. So that was our challenge and we think we’ve been able to pull it off.

IGN: I have to tell you, I’ve been thinking for years, “What took them so long to make a Fast and the Furious ride?” Because it’s such a huge franchise for Universal.

Russell: It’s very funny you say that, because there’s an interview with some of the stars from the film that says the same thing. The series, the Fast and Furious film series, it really feels like a theme park, a thrill ride in itself, but you are sitting in a theater. So it just naturally made a really great thrill ride for us to work with because you just take the images you see in the film and now apply the physics of that and apply the visceral feelings of that which we could do in a theme park and they come together in a pretty extraordinary way.

Exit Theatre Mode

IGN: I feel like if I were one of those actors I’d be pretty psyched to know I’m now part of a theme park attraction. Did it seem that way?

Russell: Absolutely. Our very first meeting with VIn Diesel, you’re never quite sure what the reaction is going to be. He was the first person we met with. We took him to King Kong and we sat him down there and he experienced King Kong and then we said, “Imagine if we took this idea to the next level; better screen, better projection, better motion base and add scenes ahead of it and you were in this thing and you’re able to have drones attract the guests and you were able to grab onto one of the drones and have it pull you off the car?” You could just see his eyes light up. Film actors are so used to working in their own medium, which is great, but this gives them a whole new area in which to play and express their characters and have fun and also to communicate with their fans in a whole different way, a more physical way that they’re actually in the Fast and Furious world with them, as opposed to being up on a screen which you’re watching. Which is still great, but this really brings everyone into their family to feel the thrill of their world.

IGN: Not that you needed to be told it was a popular series but seeing how well the seventh movie was doing, did it just give you that extra, “Alright, people are really excited about this” feeling?

Russell: There’s really nothing more exciting than to have a thrill ride open at about the same time as the film does and then to have the film be a blockbuster like this one was. It’s what every theme park aspires to and the timing is almost always impossible but we were just very lucky that it happened with them opening first and being a tremendous success and now we’re able to ride that into our opening and into what our experience is. It’s a tremendous one-two punch we’re just thrilled about.